


Never Coming Down, Never Going Down

by AbeLincolnLover



Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: (the verve) the drugs don't work, Drug Use, GSWs hurt a lot, based on my experience with GSWs, depressing story oops, somewhat realistic depiction of gunshot injury, taking out my stress on KID
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:49:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25871641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbeLincolnLover/pseuds/AbeLincolnLover
Summary: The pain - the button - the relief. A cyclic pattern. Is this how it feels to live forever?
Kudos: 9





	Never Coming Down, Never Going Down

The world fades into focus as two bleary, sore eyes search for a way to stay open. He's awake now but he won't be for long. Just another five minutes, please.

Please…

.

Sirens.

Somewhere, in the distance, there are sirens blaring. His body tenses as the slow realization finally hits. Right, the heist. Shaky, unsteady eyes skid open. He has to leave. He can't be caught, not now. He has to get out of here. But where is here? How did he get here?

He chokes back a yowl as he rolls an inch to his side. His entire left side is sizzling with the flames of hellish agony. _This_ is certainly torture. But he has to go. He has to. He _cannot_ stay here. He rolls a little bit more.

And the world shuts off.

.

A bright red and blue flashing light fills the darkness, for a moment or two, flashing on and flashing off. He watches it, in a daze of humid torment, and tries to shield his eyes – only to find his arms tethered down.

So that's it then? The police caught him? Is this the end?

A mechanical beeping comes closer, whining into his ear. The scratch of a bag being ripped, the pop of something being punctured, the dribble of water overflowing onto the ground. He tries to scoot away from the mysterious sounds, but his body rebels against his actions by shooting fireworks of pain through his veins that never quite fade away. And somewhere, deep in his neural impulses, his fingers twitch and just once he wishes he had his card gun so he could blow his fucking brains out.

Something cold crawls into his arm, and his body shuts off.

.

The next time he wakes up, he's a little more oriented. He knows he's in a white box in a bed with handcuffs on his hands and feet. Funnily enough, he's tied to a pole as well, like a dog on a leash. Those cops must be scared he'll escape.

They're right to be scared. He's an escape artist, after all.

On closer inspection, he sees he's not quite tied to the pole, but to a clear box on the pole. His leash runs from his arm to the contents of the box – a juicy, plump bag. What a thing to display so grandly.

A tremor of pain shoots through his body suddenly, originating in his stomach, causing him to convulse against the bed. He knows, somehow through some learned innate instinct, what to do, and he claws through the sheets to find a remote control. He presses the big blank button in rapid fire succession, and a wave of nothingness slowly soaks over him. It bathes his toes, and then his heels, and then his ankles, calves, knees, legs, fingers, palms, arms, torso, ears -

The world fades into a gray galactic mess of stars and atoms, before shutting off.

.

It happens again.

The pain. The button. The relief.

Again and again.

A cyclic pattern. Never ending.

Is this how it feels to live forever?

.

The pattern breaks. Of course it does.

The relief never comes. The pain remains.

He claws wildly at the button, eyes unfocused through the pain. Why won't the button work? Why does everything still hurt?

He locks his eyes on the juicy bag hanging from the pole like some sort of prize. If he could just get to it – but it's in that clear box, shut away from him with a big metal lock.

Well, that was never a problem for him anyway.

Flames rise inside as he clambers out of bed and perches himself half on top of the bedrail – shackles long forgotten in the mess of the pressed sheets because _at least he didn't forget how to do that_ – and he sets about the process of picking the lock.

A moment later, though, his head hits the floor and he's covered by three guards. They pin him down and lock his arms and legs back up and hoist him back onto the bed. The pain from the movement has increased tenfold, and the box is still securely shut closed. The prize hangs above him, mockingly, as a bead of condensation rolls down its plump, round side.

Locked in bed, with nowhere to go and without the foggiest clue of anything in the world, he realizes that perhaps Pandora isn't the only thing he'll never find.

.

Inspector Nakamori visits from the doorway, peering through the window. He can't bring himself to go in and truly see the boy he considered a son in that condition.

But even from out here, he can see the invisible spiders crawling on the boy's skin, fingers that he no longer has control of twisting and writhing to scratch them away. He can see his bloodshot eyes staring at the fresh bag of morphine on the IV pole, entire body drawing towards it but held back by cold, metal handcuffs. He can see the desire for less pain and more drugs, less feeling and more numbness. The Inspector has to close his eyes or he'll be swept away with it all.

It's hard, thankless work to go home and eat dinner with his daughter after days like this. His work isn't dinner conversation. Aoko doesn't want to hear it.

And he'd rather forget it all, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> This story won't make much sense if you don't know what a PCA pump is. For those who don't know: a PCA (patient controlled anesthesia) pump allows patients to deliver pain meds to themselves through their IV depending on how much pain they're in. There's a limit, though, so you won't overdose yourself. But what happens when you max out on pain meds and you're still in pain? As a nurse - I see it happen a lot. And it's sad. And I feel so helpless in those moments. So that's where this came from, if you were wondering.


End file.
